Air Defenses Faltered on 9/11

The chief of U.S. Air Defenses testified today that if his command had been notified immediately of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackings and ordered to intervene, U.S. fighter jets would have been able to shoot down all four of the airliners that were seized by terrorists and that ultimately crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania.

Air Force Gen. Ralph E. Eberhart, commander of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), told the commission investigating the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that had the Federal Aviation Administration conveyed word of the hijackings as soon it knew of them, "yes, we could shoot down the airplanes."

The chairman and vice chairman of the commission later expressed surprise about Eberhart's claim, and a report by the panel's staff said it was uncertain that any of the hijacked planes could have been shot down.

Eberhart, who has headed NORAD since February 2000, assured the commission that if the Sept. 11 plot were carried out today, the command's planes would be able to shoot down all four planes with time to spare, because of improvements implemented since the attacks. But he warned that NORAD should always be considered a "force of last resort."

According to the commission's new staff report, Vice President Cheney did not issue orders to shoot down hostile aircraft on Sept. 11, 2001, until long after the last hijacked airliner had already crashed, and that the order was never passed along to military fighter pilots searching for errant aircraft that morning.
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By Dan Eggen and William Branigin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 17, 2004; 2:50 PM